


A Brief Interlude

by rosecake



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Getting Together, Post-Canon (Solo), Pre-Canon (Rogue One), Recovery, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 16:43:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15271845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecake/pseuds/rosecake
Summary: Jyn attempts to rob an Imperial convoy.  It goes wrong, which she should have expected, but she's saved at the last second by a familiar face.





	A Brief Interlude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kurage_hime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurage_hime/gifts).



Jyn stared up at the sky. Dark gray clouds stretched ominously over the horizon, threatening another downpour, but for the moment the rain had stopped.

She needed to get up and moving before it started again. The earlier rain had turned the ground to mud, and the filthy water was soaking through the material of her stolen uniform, chilling the skin of her back and causing her to tremble uncontrollably. She really needed to get up, but her traitorous limbs weren't listening to her at the moment. All she could do was lay on her back and stare up at the sky, waiting for the inevitable.

None of her injuries should have been life-threatening. She'd taken a glancing blaster bolt to her thigh, and a nasty blow to her chest from a truncheon, but she hadn't punctured any organs, and she wasn't losing any blood. If she could just get up and find a nice, dry bed to sleep in for a week she'd heal up fine on her own.

Sadly, the teammates of the guards she'd killed were probably going to find her long before then.

It hadn't been the best idea to attempt a raid on her own. But how often was she going to get a chance to steal kyber, of all the things she could steal? She hadn't been able to stop herself from trying. And now she was most likely going to pay for it. The blaster bolt to her thigh wasn't enough to kill her, no, but it was enough to keep her motionless on the ground, and when the rest of the troops guarding the convoy found her that was going to be the end of it. She'd stolen a uniform, but she hadn't had enough time to properly set up a new identity to go with it. She hadn't had the money to buy code cylinders to hack. She didn't have any backup, or weapons that could pass as Imperial issue, or any of the things you really needed if you wanted to raid an Imperial base and get away with it.

She'd tried it anyway, though, and it had ended predictably badly. Such was life.

She could hear a commotion in the distance, the sounds of fighting, coming steadily closer. They would be on her soon, and then she wouldn't have to worry about the injustices of life anymore.

In her dazed state it took her a minute to realize that there shouldn't be sounds of fighting. She'd come alone, after all.

Curiosity compelled her to lift herself up off the ground, or at least to prop herself up high enough on her arms that she could look at what was going on. It hurt, but she managed it.

She recognized the Cloud-Riders just as soon as she did.

Their outfits were unmistakable, as were the bikes they rode. This wasn't their usual territory, but it also wasn't that far outside of it, and besides, the political situation changed every day, faster than she could keep up with, especially now that she was on her own.

For a second she let hope swell up in her chest, but it didn't last long before reality reasserted itself. She was wearing an Imperial uniform, next to an Imperial convoy, and she didn't expect they'd give her a whole lot of time to explain herself before they put her out of her misery. The Cloud-Riders weren't any more merciful than the Partisans when it came to dealing with the Empire.

It might be best to just play dead and hope they overlooked her. Even if they gave her a chance to talk instead of killing her out of hand, it had been a few years since she'd run with anyone in any sort of organized resistance group, and there wasn't much chance she'd be recognized or believed. She'd been a child the last time she'd seen any of them. With the masks and the helmets, she couldn't even be sure that any of them were members of the Cloud-Riders that she'd met before.

 _Out of the frying pan, into the fire,_ she thought. Moving hurt, but she forced herself anyway, reaching under the uniform jacket she was wearing to fish out her mother's necklace. The kyber crystal was warm against the palm of her hand, even in the cold damp of the air surrounding her, and she sighed.

She wouldn't need a reminder of her mother for much longer, because soon enough she'd be joining her.

Her mind drifted at that point, the encroaching sounds of fighting clamoring in her head so distantly that it felt for a while like she was only dreaming them, and then they cut out altogether. She didn't come back to herself, aware and conscious, until she heard footsteps approaching her.

Over her stood Enfys Nest, staff in one hand, lit up and hissing in the light mist of rain, ready to arc down on her the second Enfys realized she was still alive.

Well, there were worse ways to die.

The killing blow never came, though. Instead the blue glow of the lance dimmed, and Enfys raised up her mask.

Jyn had only seen her bare face on a few occasions, but it was a striking face, one that had seared itself on her memory, memories that came rushing back to her now. "Jyn?" asked Enfys, surprised. 

Jyn hadn't actually used her own name in years. She almost said so, but when she opened her mouth nothing came out but a wet cough. She might have said something in response before she passed out, but if she did, she couldn't remember it afterwards.

 ***

Jyn's memory went in and out after that. She remembered being carried, and then propped up on a bike, and then a rush of motion. She remembered being manhandled, someone tearing the pants of her uniform off to get at her wound, and she remembered the stinging pain as it was treated.

When she finally woke up properly, conscious and aware of everything around her, she was in a strange room. She was dressed in a light shift that covered the fresh bandages around her chest and thigh. A woman she'd never seen before was sitting cross-legged on the bunk across from her, and there was a gun in her arms, but she was holding it loosely. If she was meant to be guarding Jyn she was doing a very casual job of it.

"You want me to go get Enfys, or do you want to sleep some more?" asked the woman. She sounded bored.

Jyn rubbed her eyes, trying to get them clear after so long asleep. She pressed her fingers to her thigh and regretted touching the wound immediately, but the pain eased up considerably once she removed her hand. She could feel the familiar weight of her necklace hanging from her neck, so she knew they hadn't taken it from her, but she put a hand on it anyway, touching it just to be sure.

"I've slept enough," she said. "I can talk to Enfys if she wants to see me."

She moved to step down from the bed, but winced when her leg shifted.

"Oh, don't try getting up," said the woman. "I'll go get her. She can come to you."

Jyn settled back on the bunk bed as the strange woman left. She took in her surroundings - the room was dingy and worn, but it smelled clean. She was a little surprised they'd left her alone in it. Even if they'd accepted she wasn't Imperial, that didn't necessarily make her a friend.

Enfys stepped into the room a few minutes later. Her armor was still on but her mask was pulled back to show her face.

"Jyn," she said. "Am I right? From Gerrera's group?"

There was a wariness to her voice when she said Saw's name, and Jyn wondered if she'd heard something about their falling out.

"I was with the Partisans," said Jyn, wishing she didn't have to say the name of her old group. She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice. She'd spent the past few years trying to think of them as little as possible, avoiding all news of them, and it stung to be forcibly reminded of her abandonment. "It's been a while, though. I'm surprised you recognized me."

"Yes, we were both quite young the last time we met, weren't we?" said Enfys, a light smile on her face. "You've changed quite a bit. It was actually the necklace I remembered."

Jyn had tucked it under her shift. She hardly ever wore it out these days, because it always felt like she was just begging someone to take it from her. When Enfys mentioned it she brought a hand up automatically to touch it, but thought better of it and let her hand drop.

"Lots of people have crystal necklaces."

"True, but kyber's a lot rarer. I remember you said your mother gave it to you."

Jyn was surprised she remembered. Their last conversation had been years ago, and even then they'd only spoken for all of a few minutes. Jyn had been a child, hanging close to Saw as he talked business with any group willing to help the Partisans, clinging to him like he was some kind of father figure.

Then again, even nearly ten years later Jyn still remembered Enfys crouching down and explaining how her mask had been a gift from her mother, too. So maybe it wasn't that surprising at all that Enfys still remembered it as well.  

"That's right," said Jyn.  

Enfys nodded. As she sat on the opposing bed she pulled her helmet off her head and let it rest in her lap. "Why aren't you with the Partisans anymore?" she asked.

It had the potential to be a loaded question, and Jyn turned it over in her head, trying to figure out if there was an accusation in it - had she betrayed them? Or just given up? Neither answer would endear her to the kind of hard-liners that made up the Cloud-Riders.

"Difference of opinion," she said. She hadn't really expected Enfys to accept such a glib answer, but she nodded.

"Yes," she said, with a sadness in her voice that Jyn didn't understand. "Gerrera's been having a lot of those recently."

Jyn hadn't talked to him in years. Hadn't sought out any information about what he was doing. He was on Jedha, she knew that much because she hadn't managed to avoid overhearing it, but other than that she was clueless as to what he'd been up to since he'd abandoned her. 

She told herself she didn't care. She sure as hell wasn't going to ask Enfys about him.

"I can help out for a while if you need it," said Jyn. She didn't want to be seen as a freeloader. "I'm good with forgery." It was the truth, and it was something useful she could do without being able to walk much. That, and it would make the next few weeks go quicker than just lying in bed. 

"We'd appreciate it," said Enfys, smiling. "It was just Jyn, right? No family name?"

Jyn shouldn't claim Erso and she didn't particularly want to. "It's just Jyn." She should disavow her given name too, but she was too worn out to care at the moment, and it wasn't like Enfys didn't already know it. Too many people knew it. She was just fortunate that the Cloud-Riders were probably some of the last people to turn her over to the Empire.

Enfys nodded, seeming satisfied. "You can stay here as long as you like," she said. "Anything you need, just let us know.

Jyn didn't have much choice. It was strange, being around people who knew too much about her, too much about her past, but she could barely even walk on her own at the moment. It was hospitality she was going to have to accept. 

***

"Don't you get lonely on your own?" asked Enfys.

She was perched on a chair, knees pulled up her chest, watching Jyn put a damaged blaster back together. She was out of her armor, and the shift between Enfys in her armor and Enfys out of it was something Jyn didn't think she'd ever get used to. It was easy to forget that she was older than Jyn, that she'd been fighting for much longer.

"No," said Jyn. "You get used to it."

"I think you're lying."

Jyn's hands went still, the tools she was holding frozen in place for a second. She had been lying, but she didn't appreciate being called on it. "It's not like it matters one way or the other. Everyone's lonely. That's the way life works."

Enfys stood up gracefully, her legs unfolding and carrying her from her chair to the bench Jyn was sitting on in one fluid motion, and in another life she could have been a dancer instead of marauder. She slid forward a little, and she wasn't quite touching Jyn, but she was close enough that the technicality hardly mattered. "It doesn't have to be like that," she said.  

"Now who's lying?" asked Jyn. She'd meant it as sarcasm, something cutting, a way to put some kind of distance back between them. Instead she just sounded desperate, like a whining child on the edge of tears instead of the grown woman she was supposed to be.

"Jyn," said Enfys, leaning in closer, her mouth tantalizingly close to Jyn's face. Her voice was soft, and over-brimming with compassion, and Jyn wasn't sure what kind of platitude or promise Enfys had been planning on saying to her and she really didn't care. She closed the space between them, kissing Enfys before she had a chance to say anything else.

It was a long moment before Enfys pulled away, but she did pull away, and the expression on her face wasn't what Jyn had been hoping for at all. She looked slightly confused, and sad. Or maybe that was Jyn just trying to convince herself it was something other than pity.  

Enfys licked her lips, a quick motion with her tongue before she spoke. "That wasn't actually what I was getting at, Jyn," she said. "I only meant-"

Jyn shrugged, standing up to leave, because after what she'd just done the absolute last thing she wanted to do was listen to Enfys talk about it.

Enfys caught her arm, though, pulling her back down to the bench. "You could be a part of something here, with the Cloud-Riders," she said. "I don't know what happened between you and Gerrera, but you don't have to hide from the Empire on your own because of it. We could use your help, and we would help you. You could be a part of a family here. "

Jyn almost recoiled at the word _family_. She couldn't think of anything she wanted less.

"That's not what I'm looking for," said Jyn. She pulled on her arm, expecting Enfys to let her go, but Enfys only pulled her closer.

"Fine," said Enfys, pulling Jyn into a tight embrace. There was a gleam in her eyes, one that Jyn wasn't really sure what do with, not after so long on her own. "Then tell me what it is you are looking for."

Their second kiss lasted much longer.

***

Curled up in a warm bed, with Enfys wrapped around her, the last thing Jyn wanted to think about was family, but that was right where her thoughts ended up - her and Enfys, together, and in time the rest of the Cloud-Riders would come to be like brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, too many cousins to count. She was fairly certain Enfys really was related to some of them, and she might as well be related to most of the rest. And Jyn could just slot herself right into it, like a marriage. The Empire had left a staggering number of orphans in its wake, and they could adopt a few. They'd be great parents to them, because who better to understand orphans than people who had already gone through the same thing?

She was only a few nights into something that couldn't even be called a relationship yet, and already Jyn was daydreaming about love and family. It was difficult to accept that, even after everything she'd been through, there was still a part of her that could be that desperately stupid.

The truth was: the Cloud-Riders were a small fringe group, and they had only survived as long as they had because the Empire currently had bigger issues to deal with. Once the Alliance was fractured for good, the Empire's focus would turn, and Enfys would end up dead. The rest of her people would follow shortly after.

All the hope and daydreaming in the galaxy wasn't going to change the inevitable. And Jyn didn't think she wanted to be around to see any of it.

 ***

Enfys came and went, the obligations of her position making constant demands on her time, not that she seemed to mind. Leading the Cloud-Riders didn't seem to tire her so much as it energized her. When she was gone Jyn was left to her own devices, constantly moving around the crowded base, shifting against the tides of people shuffling around her. She tried to keep to isolated corridors and empty rooms, but they could be in short supply at times. So she ended up surrounded by Cloud-Riders most of the time, chatting with each other, laughing, reminding her so much of the Partisans that sometimes being in the middle of it caught her like a physical blow to the chest, so hard that she could barely breathe.

They didn't bother her once she made it clear she wasn't looking for new friends. They tolerated her presence, and were polite and grateful for her work forging access codes and other documentation, but other than that they left her alone. Still, as the days stretched into weeks, things eased into a familiar rhythm despite Jyn's best attempts to prevent it. People said hello to her in the halls even when she barely responded back, and the workers remembered what she liked in the canteen. People she didn't remember meeting still seemed to know her name.

And Enfys Nest was far and away the worst part of it. She left, and Jyn found herself waiting for her to come back, waiting for her touch, desperate for the chance to fall asleep wrapped up in another person instead of by herself.

It got under her skin, the familiarity and comfort of it all crawling around and keeping her distracted even when she was alone, until she couldn't take it anymore. Her ribs still hurt when she moved wrong and the mark on her leg hadn't faded yet, but she was well enough that she could take care of herself.  Waiting around was just going to make the inevitable all the more difficult.  

So she packed a bag - a bag that wasn't hers, with food that wasn't hers and clothes that weren't hers and some long forgotten notion of politeness and gratitude rose up in her and told her should at least leave a fucking thank-you note or something. Jyn ignored it. She'd done enough work for the Cloud-Riders during her convalescence to justify taking one measly bag of supplies without asking first. Maybe not enough to justify the blaster she'd also helped herself too, but she wasn't going to let that keep her up at night either. It wasn't like she was taking one of their swoop-bikes, even though without one it was going to take days to make it from their make-shift base to an outpost big enough for her to hitch a ride off-planet.  

Jyn hadn't expected much trouble in sneaking out, but Enfys was waiting for her at the gate when she walked up to it. 

"You don't have to leave," said Enfys. "We need more people. Especially people as talented as you."

Jyn pulled her bag closer, letting her hands tighten in the straps until they hurt. The offer was tempting - it was always tempting, the fantasy of something better, but the problem with fantasies was that you always had to come back to reality eventually. And the longer you put it off the worse it hurt.

"I'm not really the asset you seem to think I am," said Jyn. "And, after all, the Cloud-Riders have done just fine without me until now. I'm sure you'll continue to do fine once I've gone."

Enfys smiled, a little sadly. "That's not true, Jyn. Things are changing and you know it." It was hard to see that earnest expression of hers crack, see that exuberant hope she radiated dim some in the face of reality. Life was chipping away at the Cloud-Riders. Life was chipping away at everyone who lived under the Empire. Decades of fighting, decades of sacrifice, and what had anyone ever managed to accomplish against the Empire for any of it? People broke themselves against the machine every day while it just got stronger.

Jyn was tired. Too tired for Enfys, too tired for the Cloud-Riders.

"You could at least stay until you're better," said Enfys when Jyn didn't answer her. 

Jyn absentmindedly ran a palm down her leg. The fabric of her pants scrapped against the raw skin, but it had healed up well enough that she didn't need a bandage on it anymore. It barely even hurt to press down on it.

"My leg is fine," said Jyn. "My chest is fine. You don't need to worry about me."

"Nothing is going to stop me from worrying about you once you've gone, Jyn, and it's not because of your injuries," she said, and Jyn swallowed down the guilt rising in her throat. She hadn't meant for things to go quite this far. It was her own fault, though.  She was the one who'd kissed Enfys first.  "Were you even going to say goodbye?"

Enfys didn't sound hurt, exactly, and there was no accusation in her tone. It was just a question, and a fair enough one at that, but it still sent a flush of shame through Jyn anyway. She hoped it didn't show on her face.

"Sorry," said Jyn. "It's just how I was raised."

Enfys nodded, accepting it, and started walking back inside the base. As she walked by Jyn she stopped to press a brief kiss to the side of her face. "Just promise you'll be careful out there on your own," she said, her hand briefly tightening around Jyn's wrist before she let go again, "and good luck, Jyn."

Then she was gone without waiting for a response, leaving Jyn standing alone in the night, just like she'd wanted. It took her her a minute to get her legs working properly, but then she was moving, through the gate and on towards whatever life would throw at her next. 

***

Afterwards Jyn spent the better part of a year being careful, being calculating, keeping her head down. She moved from planet to moon to starbase, following the cheap forging jobs and pretty criminal enterprises that kept her in enough money to stay alive, and tried not to think about the hollow core where her heart ought to be.

When she discovered the petty little dictator's ship, far fancier than he ought to be able to afford even after draining his people dry, full of more guns than she could price in her head and not quite enough security for that amount of firepower, she couldn't help herself. The job really only needed around three people to be done safely, professionally. She could pull it off on her own with a little bit of luck.  

There was a voice in the back of her head, one that old her _you have people you can ask, you just have to actually ask_ , and she ignored it. If it came down to choosing between the risk of getting in over her head on her own or the risk of relying on other people, well, she knew which risk she'd rather take.

Later, shackled in a over-stuffed transport, surrounded by stormtroopers and destined for Wobani, it was too late to change her mind.


End file.
